Infinite'minus'one ways the Doctor and River meet
by Isolith
Summary: An infinite number of timey-wimey ways the Doctor and River meet subtracting one library-wibrary meeting. Up: the Doctor gets stuck in a time bubble with River and they test their inner-Gorgi acuity and Gallifreyan poetry is uttered.
1. Chapter 1: 35

**Title:** An infinite-minus-one ways the Doctor and River meet

**Summary:** An infinite number of timey-wimey ways the Doctor and River meet subtracting one library-wibrary meeting – which means a finite number of ways the Doctor and River meet. An impossible amount of possible meetings without any probable order, plausible logic or for that matter convenient purpose but with just a hint of paradoxical temperament and improbable whimsy.

**Warning:** Random humor is bound to happen, so be warned.

* * *

**Of space-fungi and recreational mathematics**

_In which the Doctor and River meet, get spaced out on a forest of mushrooms and have a very very and slightly non-very philosophic conversation about … something sub-textual. _

* * *

The interplanetary geo-grid Pacific 5.0 is a marvel among… well marvels. An underground dirty sort of marvel but a marvel nonetheless. It was the Doctor's favorite mushroom-haunt, infamous for being home to a most rare batch of Yuru-ruru-ruru-ruru-ruru-ruru – and it goes on for quite some time – fungi. A special species of the geni-ruru family which when boiled and spiced under the right circumstances and conditions makes a perfect out-of-this-universe-and-into-the-next transcendental soup.

Unfortunately when smoked and inhaled the huge black fungi become a highly hallucinogenic narcotic. The Doctor however had in his early days calculated the risk of accidentally setting the mushrooms, big as trees and covering an entire valley with their big fungi-clustering, on fire and simultaneously being exposed to the fungi's puffs of hallucinogenic wafts of fungi-fumes and the odds were calculated to something like 1 to .998... and slightly more. Which meant, basically, the risk of being infected with the hallucinogenic fumes was fundamentally zero.

_Against all odds_ the forest of the yuru-ruru-fungi was raging with flames and smoke was wafting and drifting across the sky in ominous blacks clouds. It would have been something of a sight viewed from a safely distance but _against all odds_ the Doctor's Tardis had landed him in the midst of the rampage.

Basically the Doctor was screwed – which was in fact the last coherent thought he had before he started feeling light-headed and giddy, or so Givean history books declare. However it is rumored among the triplet constellations of Gallabay that the last coherent thought he had was rather "_Oh crap – there is something very important I am supposed to remember about the fungi smoke… but what is it? C'mon, c'mon – think…_" The first seem as likely as the last – and the Gallabayian account seem just as liable as the Givean – mind you the two races wrought war and destruction on each other for centuries about this very dispute. An interstellar conflict only deteriorating when the Tri'wi brought along an old journal that disagreed with the two first accounts. The Doctor, to his credit, did try to aid the peace process but unfortunately no one believed him as an angry River had just nicked his inter-universal passport – but that is a story for another day.

Misfortune have it that when under the influence of anything yuru-ruru related the Doctor becomes endowed with the attention span of a goldfish, and thus it was that he quickly forgot about the importance of what it was he had forgot but really should remember – and instead decided to… well, did I mention the attention span thingamajig? –

"_Ohh rabbit_" the Doctor squealed and followed the small creature between massive trunks of mushrooms, his arms spread out wide and his lips drawn away from his teeth in a quite frankly horrid smile. Whether the rabbit existed or not still remains a very tantalizing characteristic of combining philosophy with current intergalactic probability-mathematic. Seeing as he did chase something which he categorized as belonging to the earth species cuniculus, whether factual or borne from his hallucinogenic mind, we have to assume the rabbit existed however briefly in the time when it was observed – for the Doctor did observe it no matter whether or not it was really there or not.

Regardless of the existence of the rabbit – of course rabbit aficionados will protest vehemently at this statement – the Doctor chased something, stumbling through the burning mushroom forest, his arms flailing and his long gangly legs flying both this and that way. He was a sight for sore eyes – and I'd imagine he was indeed a sight for the frantic rabbit who was trying to outrun him. Poor thing – not only did it have to come to terms with its own uncertain existence but it also had to bear witness to the oncoming storm in a most absurd outpour of weather-moodiness. Yes the poor little rabbit caught in the absurdum of existential crisis, not sure if it should run or not, if it should think or not – if it could think?

The Doctor stumbled a remarkable number of times and bearing in mind he is indeed ridiculous clumsy in his current regeneration, it still remained a remarkable amount of tripping and hugging the ground. He slipped and grazed his knees, he tripped and landed on his face, he fell over small stones you really have no business tripping over and he stumbled into trees that only the blind would miss – yes it was a dreadful chase through the mushroom-woods for the Doctor. Luckily he was stoned and every mishap was received with a laugh and a cry of '_Geronimo_'. But sure as rain in the northern parts of Scandinavia (Earth Scandinavia) the Doctor would feel his bruised and battered body in the morning after – it is always _the morning after_ with these hallucinogenic narcotic things isn't it?

The most possible, probable reason for this whole mess would obviously be to assume that the infamous Time Lord calculations were slightly off track – perhaps he had forgotten that the zig-zag ratio of positive and quite cheerful probability is merely the term for the likelihood-circulation of an unobserved variable – yes he had forgotten to square that root.

For the one thing he had overlooked – something which really should be considered quite an amazing achievement – is that when River Song enters the equation the probability factor rises significantly – and any distribution of unobservable variables scatters away in a feeble heap.

The Doctor followed the rabbit blind to his surroundings and it was really no surprise – to any of us – when he once again ran into something solid and ended up on the ground – again. His world tilted to the damp cold soil, his mind surely dazed and confused – or maybe that is spaced and confused?

And the solid thing he ran into, you ask?

It was something slightly human – as human as any 51th woman care to declare herself – and slightly more strange than normal.

"_River"_

"_Ohh – pretty doctor-boy" _

"_Mushroom"_

"_Mushroom"_

And this is – something which later on become quite an embarrassingly memory for the two involved, the relative middle of a tale of a time-travelling alien and another time-travelling alien. You might wonder why the both of them are classified as alien but I beg you; it's all a matter of perspective… and relative fractions of disturbing DNA-ish material.

"_River, you set fire to the yuru – yuru-you pyromaniac"_

"_Pretty boy, pretty boy, pretty boy. Maybe I did – maybe I didn't"_

"_No, no, no. Either you did or you didn't."_

"_Ye-es"_

The Doctor would later on come to realize that the universal word for '_yes_' never really did mean '_yes_' when River uttered it – entirely. You see, with River there was always something hidden in the _yes_, there was always an echo of secrets that followed that small little word of affirmation. Much later on the Doctor would likewise come to the staggering discovery that when pressure was applied to certain parts of her body River would scream _yes_ as well but that is a conundrum for an entirely different occasion – and should not really be talked about in certain circles of interplanetary society.

"_Arson, parson, larson"_

"_Pretty boy, pretty witty"_

"_I'm a butterfly because I fly in time?"_

"_So do I – fly in time"_

"_Timey-wimey-dimey"_

"_Shiny"_

As you might have guessed; the intelligence quota seems to be stagnating at a frightfully swift pace. This is neither a groundbreaking nor an astute observation seeing as even a walnut could have drawn that conclusion. But from the viewpoint of the two time-travelling troublemakers, if one wanted to get inside their heads at such a time, their conversing is quite actually astonishing intellectual – even for a walnut. They might even describe it as being very very normal. And therein lies the rub. Nor-mal-li-ty – it doesn't really agree with the walnut, or time travelling aliens for that matter. The problem with normality… normality is just another alien and alas even that space-alien is under the influence.

"_Oh no – I think I've miscalculated"_

"_Oh – that makes two." _

"_Two what"_

"_Two determinants of miscalculation" _

"_Oh yeah – I forgot my two hearts that's right"_

"_You're a two-too!" _

"_Yes" _

"_I'm a two-too!"_

"_That makes three"_

"_Yes… No… it makes four"_

"_No, no, no… we forgot the phi dimension"_

"_Two-too squared phi"_

"_No, no – not phi. The phi dimension"_

"_Aw – icky sticky recreational mathematics"_

"_Two-too-iterated to the happy factor"_

"_Cheers"_

"_Cheers"_

It's not exactly rocket science – and it's most definitely not relative dimensional space science – but fortunately the conversation doesn't turn to the shrewd works of good-old Gh∆β who immersed himself in the philosophy of happy primes mating with the depressed ones. Count yourself lucky.

"_Oh I feel strangely depressed"_

"_Oh – happy prime meets depressed prime"_

Sigh – never mind.

**-o-**

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** Riight. This was just as weird for me as it must have been for you – and I wrote it. Got some more chapters worked out though for this is seriously too hilarious not to write.

The odds are that the next part will be (spoiler alert):

_The story in which the 24th doctor is send to interrogate River about her involvement in an uprising of the fifth regiment of al'Dastas._

Though you never really know with probability and its teenage temper tantrums.

/Iso =)


	2. Chapter 2: 1

**AN:** Onwards, said the rabbit. ;)

_Enjoy_

* * *

**Of provocative behaviour and interstellar interrogation**

_In which the 24th doctor is send to interrogate River about her involvement in an uprising of the fifth regiment of al'Dastas._

Chumming with the Judoon and acting as their law-enforcing errand Time Boy would probably be among the stranger things the Doctor had ever done. It might even be among the things he would never do, if one applied logic to it but when have logic ever done anything good – to anyone? - certainly not to the illogical. But then again logic and illogic never really got along; a blood feud dating back all the way to the days of common sense and independent sense who never really got along either.

By why is the Doctor clapping his matey-Judoon on the back and sharing his infamous jokes about the lizard, wizard and dandelion when obviously that would be something fairly far-fetched and rather irksome, you ask? I am not entirely sure myself but it has something to do with either a drunken wager gone horribly wrong or a sort of community service for the countless intergalactic offenses the Doctor seems to have collected over the years. The latter seems the most plausible doesn't it? The Shadow Proclamation do deem his rogue semantics and infatuation with saving the universe as outrageously over-eager and downright unlawful. Actually – if one thinks about it the most far-fetched thing about the whole story is that they never managed to submit him to their division before now.

As absurdly as it seems though and even the Doctor seems to think so, he is indisputably the not-so-proud owner of a job – and the reason for his chumminess with the Judoon is really just a by-product of proof-reading countless stacks of protocol reports. You wouldn't believe the absurd punctuation errors the Judoon is capable of and the grammar – why it is mindboggling wrong. But then again the Judoon have gone to great lengths to disguise the fact that they're suffering from a severe case of sunny-side-up-dyslexia – it's one of those secret wonders of the universe. Consequently if you ever need to confuse a Judoon long enough to make a hasty escape, simply ask for the genitive form of rha'calibeaucaflorfex – it gets them every time.

Now, courtesy of the Wi'tri who is rather like the flipside of their cousin tribe the Tri'wi, the whole battalion of Judoon-soldiers was called away on a peace-mission and that left the Doctor holding down the forts – so to speak. And it was this contributory warmongering Wi'tri event that lead to an altogether different one – of course the first event was caused by an altogether different thing as well. In the end the product of everything squared equalled the Doctor opening the door into interrogation room trillion.2 ready to commence his ruthless persona as interrogator and extract information about the recent rally demonstration of the fifth regiment of al'Dastas.

Unfortunately or fortunately dependent on the perspective, the Doctor found himself once again in the company of his favourite troublesome-misdemeanoring-sometime-lover-sometime-stranger; River Song.

"_Miss Song_"

As if destiny had sneaked a preview of what was to come and begged kismet to do her a favour, fate would have it that River was once again in handcuffs tied to the metal table in the middle of the interrogation room, a choker around her neck connecting her to the metal chair and making escape impossible. Though most likely it was the doing of a future Doctor who'd always had a fetish for handcuffs and chokers but never mind that, it's rather inconsequential to this story and involves a rather long story about sciency-stuff.

"_Tsk, tsk – caught inflicting violence on the chapel of the sacred_"

"_I plead the fifth_"

This was a phrase the Doctor was incredible familiar with seeing as a future River always uttered these words to his younger self whenever something troublesome or irksome came up in conversation – such as why the Doctor found River Song underlined as '_dangerous_' in the achieves of DRushi or why she was highlighted as '_explosive_' in dalekian records.

"_On what grounds_"

"_On the chapel's sacred grounds_"

"_Ah – that is a very obsolete parley_ –_ it was deleted in the 51th century_"

"_Exactly_"

"_Whatever do you mean 'exactly'?_"

"_It's still in effect. It won't actually be deleted until next month_"

This seemed to be an occurring theme in the Doctor's life; losing track of time and events and never getting them in the correct order. Something which proves a quite bothersome factor when one is supposed to be a Lord of Time but you would be astounded by the many inaccuracies of the universe, let alone the universe in all the possible timeframes of its existence so it's really no small wonder a Time Lord sometimes thinks it's the Novembian month when its actually the month presiding it.

"_Then I shall just have to expunge the sacred grounds plead a month earlier_"

"_Why that's a time crime!_"

"_So – sue me_"

And the Doctor managed to vex the young troublesome River and rewrite time all in a manner of seconds. Now do not fret – it actually happens quite frequently what with the time streams being in an irrevocably schizophrenic mindset about the nature of things in flux and those fixed. You see, time doesn't always know whether it's fixed or fluxed, whether when it's in flux if this is an influxed or an infixed flux. And time fixed just gets depressed after a while and decides to change the scenery.

"_Then I plead the tenth_"

"_The scared grounds have nothing to do with primordial time-fizz_"

"_Prove it_"

River what with being River was shamefully snarky and a little bit very obnoxious this young, and as the Doctor had come to learn it didn't really disappear or even falter the older she got. Like a fine wine it only got better with age – which in this allegory meant snarkiness was bound to happen no matter which age River happened to adorn or which time line she appeared in.

"_Why, of all the flower-tower loving beings in the universe, why the al'Dastas?_"

"_Why do you want to know?_"

Interrogating River was never really a special favourite of the Doctors, for he never seemed to get it right. The very temperament of almost every conversation with the illusive secretive woman always bore some resemblance to him interrogating her as he tried to figure out the nature of their relationship, and who the bloody time River Song was. If the Doctor had known just how bothersome the word '_spoiler_' would become to him, he wouldn't have invented the damn thing in the first place. But, sneaky as was the Doctor's nature when he was in head wind, he figured young River was not accustomed to their verbal '_spoiler_' foreplay. Younger River should from a logical and plausible standpoint be easy to manipulate. So the Doctor set out to manipulate – with teeth and claws.

"_So, River – may I call you River – do you spend a lot of time on Dastas-shur?_"

"_No_"

"_No I may not call you River or no to not spending a lot of time on Dastas-shur?_"

"_No, I don't spend a lot of time on Dastas-shur_"

Pause.

"_How old are you, River?_"

"_I'd imagine that would be in your records._"

"_Yeah, well – computer's down_"

The truth was that the Judoon safeguarded their records as if it were biohazard material and the Doctor had yet to figure out where it was situated let alone how to get past security. He was the meddlesome Time Lord and the Judoon only trusted him as far as they could throw him – which was incidentally one inch and three quarters.

"_Electronics huh_"

"_Always the instigator – now how old are you?_"

"_Do you want Kastonian, Martian or old-fashioned Earthian years?_"

"_That depends – are you from Kastonia?_"

"_No_"

"_Then why would I want your age in Kastonian years?_"

"_Oh you know, some people have the weirdest sense of time_"

"_I know and worse yet, some people don't even recognize time_"

"_Oh the horror_"

Sarcasm had always been River's forte and whenever in need of insulting his enemies the Doctor merely sent River along to infuriate them with her bark – which surprisingly never seemed to fail. But being on the receiving end of her snarky snark was quite disconcerting for the Doctor. He couldn't very well respond as he did to the older River whenever she became all feisty and snarky – that would most likely result in quite the opposite of what usually happened. The Doctor was quite right in his contemplation, you see, for amorous displays of affection never seemed to have the same effect when your companion wasn't clued in to the amorous aspect of a non-existing relationship.

"_Yes, yes, we've established you're tongue in cheek – now how old?_"

"_Would you believe me if I told you I was so anciently old I've actually forgotten the number?_"

"_No_"

"_I'm so anciently old I've forgotten the exact number, pretty boy_"

Yes, River was a force of nature. And nature aced interrogation 101.

"_Right… River, how about telling me about the fifth regiment_"

"_I thought you would never ask_"

"_I'm asking_"

"_Yes_"

"_What_"

"_My answer is yes_"

Of all the words in the entire history of the universe it was always _yes _that came back to haunt him.

"_To everything? You plead guilty, you mean?_"

"_No_"

Pause.

"_River, have you ever been to Planet Theca Major_?"

"_No_"

And that was really the start of River's troubles with the time-travelling alien who she would later on come to acknowledge as '_sweetie_'. For the Doctor it was the end of his stint as errand Time Boy for the Shadow Proclamation or at least he assumed it was the end seeing as it was usually frowned upon when employees sneaked off with high-calibre prisoners.

-o-

=)


	3. Chapter 3: 67

**Of colourful sonic devices and spacemen in shining tentacle-armour**

_In which the Doctor 'rescues' River from a crowd of spacemen, the 56__th__ century is bashed to pieces and someone rave about the brilliance of sonic whatnot._

* * *

The Doctor had always been of the opinion that when he met River for the first time – from her point of view – it would be a wonderful and quite tranquil affair. Since this did not apply fittingly to their first meeting, or any other for that matter, the Doctor felt inclined to submit his opinion onto the next encounter with her – and naturally he was rather looking forward to that wonderfully and quite tranquil affair. Boy was he ever wrongly-opinionated – once again. What the Doctor should have as an opinion in regards to River Song, if he wanted to predict the encounters, should simply be an attitude of expecting the unpredictable. Unpredictable and adventurous, and he should most certainly try to remember that whenever River showed up trouble was bound to occur – and that wherever trouble showed up he was bound to follow. So, Trouble, River and the Doctor equal a nice mix of unstable elements, even if it is the abhorrent 56th century.

Now, think about the complicated random attitude of the universe and the vastness of space – and tell me the odds of actually meeting the same person not only twice but thrice. Yes that is a random event that surely would be tricky to calculate – especially employing the pessimistic approach of 56th century spacial-hyper-bole-science which adorned the world with its uniquely cynical approach to understanding the surrounding universe for decades. Now decades are rather like blips – if even that – in contrast to all of time but even then those 56th decades were exceptionally long and dull, and contributed nothing at all to the universe but boredom and headache.

You see? This is the reason the Doctor has been avoiding the 56th century for most of his long life, and the reason he would do almost anything to never go there again. Yes the 56th century would be classified as '_harmfully boring_' in the Doctor's encyclopaedia if he ever wrote one – next to the paragraph on why to avoid Sundays when travelling through time and space but that is a story for another time.

What matters now – and would be quite insignificant in the future but woefully important in the past – is that once again the Tardis has decided to land in the 56th century. And not only is it the 56th century… but it's likewise the ¤5 holidays. A more volatile combination couldn't even be found in a container full of explosive gasoline meeting trigger-happy gun-wielding maniacs.

Worse yet – and this is where its gets complicated and ridiculously unrealistic if applying the 56th century science which is also the reason the century was mocked shamelessly by the ones following it – the Doctor walked out of his beloved time machine to find himself in the middle of a Mexican hold-up. Now, with you being human and all, you might think the hold-up was the work of Mexicans but that is where you assume incorrectly. This was a Mexican hold-up of the space-variant; a horrible galactic description that never fit the situation but was nonetheless always employed as an explanatory phrase for something involving a huge amount of high-powered guns and semi-sea-creatures in spacesuits. Really it had absolutely nothing to do with Mexico but that's the problem with foreigners isn't it – they always get these things horribly wrong.

Now, the Doctor would simply have slinked back to his machine if it hadn't been for the fact that the Tardis had disappeared – an occurrence that 56th residents would declare as so unlikely to happen that even the notion of the existence of a Tardis in the first place was considered highly impracticable. Yes, you should stay far away from anything remotely related to the 56th century.

"_Hello there_"

The Doctor was infamous throughout the universe for his impeccable timing – you see he always did appear whenever things got icky. A fact most of the universe's population considered most maddening – and the few who rather liked this gait of his make a rather insignificant group against the rest of the universe. Thankfully the vast majority also seems to be of the notion that the Doctor is a made-up fairytale so they never really find his intruding timing too upsetting. That is of course only the majority of the majority. You see, there's a small fraction of the majority, a minor party, who do find the Doctor most annoying and most dangerous to their well-being. Coincidentally this minority is also the group that scored the highest in the recent Ghallu' universal questionnaire on psychotic hyper-space megalomania. Whether psychotic hyper-space megalomania is at all related to a negative attitude towards the impeccable timing of a Time Lord has yet to be established but certainly ranks high on the research grants in the 98th century.

"_Dok-tah_"

"_Space-thingie-tentacle-thingies_"

Meeting aliens you've never met before even though they know your name always turn out to be an awkward encounter – even for someone as well-travelled as the Doctor – and makes it slightly hard to greet them by a proper name.

"_Sei-ze hi-im_"

The problem with megalomaniacal aliens always seems to be that they never really win any beauty contests, or even '_unremarkable-but-slightly-disturbing-__to-look-at_' competitions. The more serious problem with megalomaniac aliens though, in spite of their less than appealing nature, is that they always seem to be able to cause a whole lot of trouble for the Doctor and his time-travelling cronies. The Doctor had stepped out of his Tardis and into a wrecked containment facility – right into a dangerous group of rebels from the look of it, who formed a circle around him and pointed their many shiny weapons at him.

The Doctor has never been much for violence – at least not the suicidal kind – so he raised his arms in surrender and gave them a big cheerful smile. Despite the smile – a gesture the Doctor thought most inviting – the '_Mexican'_ tentacle-aliens had him in handcuffs in a manner of seconds and dragged him none to gently down a dark corridor to lock him up in a small room which looked suspiciously like a 56th cupboard.

What came as a surprise – even though it really shouldn't – was finding a young River Song the inhabitant of the storeroom, bound and tied. The aliens plumped the Doctor on the floor next to River and left the two friends alone in the small rather humid room. River seemed to be on the verge of vexation: a sure sign things were indeed not even in the remote proximity of wonderful and quite tranquil.

The Doctor sighed, and filed his 'wonderful and quite tranquil' opinion to their next meeting where he was sure it was bound to happen.

"_River_"

"_Doctor_"

Now greetings between the Doctor and River did have a nice quality of tranquillity in it – if you looked really hard and possibly narrowed your eyes a little to better see.

"_You are exceptionally ineffective when it comes to a rescue mission, you know_"

"_Ah – but I never planned on this being a rescue mission_"

"_Still rubbish_"

"_But I have a plan_"

"_What plan?_"

"_A thing, a plan – you know_"

"_Please do not tell me it's in progress_"

"_Well - it actually is_"

"_Drat_"

River was quite right – the Doctor was in the middle of processing his infamous plan-in-progress contemplation and how to act on the not-yet formed plan. This is something that has puzzled and astounded philosophers – and some war strategists – for hundreds of centuries and they never seem to comprehend the basic layer of what a plan-in-progress is and how the Doctor makes it valid and square – why sometimes it even takes the form of something pear-shaped.

"_Ah – I shall use the new setting on my sonic screwdriver_"

"_What - the green flash-thingie?_"

"_No, no – the slightly green but mostly pink flash-thingie_"

What they failed to put into the aspect of plans-in-progress is that it sometimes needs a little boost by something sonic and hand carried – but then again philosophers have never cared much for the sonic nature of inanimate things and war strategists have next to none use of a screwdriver unless their weaponry is extensively raided.

Unfortunately what the Doctor failed to put into the aspect of his own plan-in-progress was that in order to use a sonic device it required free use of at least one hand. Now with both River and himself handcuffed, extracting said sonic device from the depths of your relative-dimensional pockets turned out to be rather tricky indeed.

"_Umm_,_ River?_"

"_What_"

"_My sonic screwdriver is in my pocket_"

"_I know_"

"_Yeah – it's kind of a tiny problem, you see_"

"_Why_?"

"_I cannot reach it – my hands are tied_"

"_Can't you just overstretch a bit?_"

"_I'm not a damn boneless creature!_"

"_You could have fooled me_"

"_Har-har_"

You might think this is the part where River edges closer to the Doctor and somehow manage to ransack his pockets, and then miraculously ends up freeing the both of them. Unluckily the '_Mexican_' tentacle-aliens are infamous for their ruthless knots and they had managed to tie River to one wall and the Doctor to the opposite wall – a most conniving action even the Doctor found worthy of applause.

"_It's not pinkish_"

"_What isn't?_"

"_The new setting – it can't be pinkish_"

"_River, it's pink – deal with it_"

"_No it's a green flash thingie_"

"_No, no – it's mostly very pink_"

"_That is mostly very ridiculous_"

"_It most very certainly is not_"

"_Can't you just voice-activate your sonic?_"

"_Well… no_"

"_Why, what good is a sonic device then!_"

"_Hey – don't hate the sonic_"

"_Hmmf_"

Time moves obnoxiously slow when one is tied up in a small cupboard. It's a fact. But when that cupboard is situated in the 56th century time is moving at an even slower snail pace.

"_Dratted century_"

"_You blame _this_ on the century – how very quaint of you, Doctor_"

"_The 56__th__ has brought nothing but boredom – it's a stinky, icky cesspool of boredom – dull, dull, boring boredom_"

"_How do you explain the transgenic ahoo-gobii then?_"

"_Easy – it's obviously not from here… … I checked._"

"_Checked?_"

"_Yeah, it was in one of my earlier days, I ran through the whole genetic make-up of the plant_"

"_Only you would analyze a goddamn plant to prove a century is boring_"

"_I was bored_"

The concept of the Doctor being bored is rather frightening actually – even more so when experienced first-hand, I tell you. River knows this too – which is the reason she stays clear of anything Tardis-related whenever it's Sunday.

"_So, been up to anything criminal lately?_"

"_Spoilers_"

The Doctor sighed – _spoilers _always did annoy him. A fact River knew all too well and exploited more than was necessary. But not many things irk a Time Lord, so once you find that thing that does, hang on to it tightly and use it extensively.

"_Stopped any invasions of Earth recently?_"

"_Why River, that is big shiny neon 'spoiler' no-no_"

Pause.

"_Been to prison lately? – or is this a failed break out?_"

"_Sorry – that is need to know, Doctor_"

Pause.

"_You've just been to R'mish, right?_"

"_R'mish, River – really!_"

"_They were experiencing unexplained abnormalities in time – and suddenly 'puff' – their dimension was restored rather crudely_"

"_We-ell_"

"_Admit it – you crashed the Tardis, caused a bit of havoc, committed a couple of inter-galactic felonies and left the place in a mess_"

"_Sure_"

"_Sure? – you're admitting it – just like that?_"

"_Yes_"

"_Why?_"

Pause.

"_I lied – I always lie_"

River had forgotten rule number 1 – the Doctor lies. This is why the two time-travelling aliens fit so well, you see, both skilled in the charming art of lying left and right, forwards and backwards.

"_Twit_"

"_Honey_"

You might think the Doctor and River continue their juvenile conversation for quite some time – and you would be absolutely right. Which is the reason we fast-forward a couple of hours in time to the point where the Doctor and River actually escape, though not how you necessarily escape with dignity but a escape nonetheless.

The escape involved not only three dimensions of unspeakable actions but a whole range of dimensional transgressions that really have no business being retold. Most importantly; the Doctor and River escaped.

And even more importantly; they found out the colour of the new setting on the Doctor's screwdriver. Incidentally the colour turned out to be a cross between aquamarine and turquoise. A shade not even in the remote proximity of either green or pink.

Needless to say the Doctor still insisted it was indeed pink – and River still maintained it was green.

* * *

=).. Yup, this was weird writing. But a lovable weird. Hehe.


	4. Chapter 4: 89,1

**Of spatio-temporal hyperlinks and Gallifreyan poetry**

_In which the Doctor gets stuck in a time bubble with River and they test their inner-Gorgi acuity and Gallifreyan poetry is uttered._

* * *

Many things in this universe are a matter of relativity. What to some people is the certain sign of foreboding death is to other people the very delightful symbol of peace – and a third party might even come to the conclusion that the symbol is an indication of a peaceful death. You see! relativity. Naturally the whole descriptive category of '_people_' is relative too – and since I highly doubt you've ever been to the Gorgininium galaxies let alone beaten a off-track away from the atmosphere of one planet Earth the term '_people_' is more along a standard term so as not to confuse you.

Je0hs are from a non-strict relatively point of view somewhat positively associated with the definition of '_people_' if you categorize '_people_' as a collective group of 'beings'. Relatively speaking the 76gjo are rather like people too if you squint really hard and look underneath their armour of golden grass. Most importantly if you are ever lost in the wilderness of space ask a 76gjo for directions. Unlike some other species the 76gjo will actually politely point you in the correct direction whereas the Je0hs will blatantly ignore you and the _101.001.b.2_ will purposefully mislead you if they do not kidnap you first – which would rather be the cause for the _101.001.b.2 _not even remotely belonging to the term '_people_'. Relatively speaking, mind you – the _101.001.b.2 _do after some fashion see themselves as '_people_'.

Intelligence is one of those relative dimensional-things as well – from a non-linear time-travelling view. In some northern orbitiary-tutis galaxies '_people_' are considered mighty wise if they can calculate the occurrence of magic doors in the whole of existence. Since magic doors exist outside reality and our perception and therefore prove rather hard to count, no one is actually considered wise in the northern orbitiary-tutis galaxies. A shame really, since most of the inhabitants of northern orbitiary-tutis galaxies are curiously considered among the universe's sparse collection of wise sentient beings, from a strictly outside-looking-in encyclopaedia-way.

"_Galileo and Gallifreo_"

"_Doctor, seriously_"

"_No, no – you're doing it wrong_"

"_According to who?_"

"_Whom-boom_"

"_Bullocks and bullshit_"

"_That's better - Newton and Jiewthon_"

"_You cheat_"

"_You cheat and I cheat_"

"_Bastard and dastard_"

"_Hmm – Gallilinium and Thanininium_"

"_Time and swine_"

"_Hey, I take offense at that_"

"_I would apologise if it wasn't intended_"

"_Smug and bug_"

"_Are you trying to insinuate something?_"

"_No, I thought it was painstakingly obvious_"

"_Gah and blah_"

Yes, the Doctor and River are currently taking part in a Gorgininium verbal-sparring contest; a so rare occurrence that when it takes place – assuming we are not in the proximity of a Gorilla-Planet – we can postulate the origin of their troubled behaviour without postulating wrongly. Anything Gorgininium-related that comes into contact with the Doctor and River in the same time-stream and time-line and the only explanation is that the two troublemakers are stuck. Undoubtedly. Painstakingly. Heartachingly. Indisputably. Stuck.

And the only way to be indisputably and undoubtedly stuck in the universe is to be stuck in a bubble of time – still and unmoving time that is. Now, this might sound ridiculously ridiculous to all you human beings; time standing absolutely still and encasing living things in a bubble of stasis but it actually happens quite periodically throughout the galaxies. Sometime even time gets tired of running, and decides to stack some z's – an event that frankly disturbs many. Unfortunately suing 'time' proves a rather difficult task, so difficult I'd tell you to go count the magic doors instead.

"_Athjuu and_ _you are awfully incorrigible_,_ River_"

"_Damn and bam, Doctor_ _– you started this_"

"_Mess and_ _yes, back when I was under the delusion you could hold your own in a little Gorgininium test of acuity_"

"_Sure, fine, whatever_"

"_Snark and bark – you know the rules_"

"_Doctor and nutter – this is insane_"

"_Insane and mundane, maybe – but I still win_"

"_Twit and twat_"

"_I win and grin_"

"_Twig and gharry-wig_"

You might at this point in time (the sentence '_this point in time_' is a conundrum in itself when encased in a bubble of time seeing as such an event does absolutely nothing to time at all, making it significantly redundant and imaginary to talk about any point in time let alone one specific point in time) wonder about this whole Gorgininium semidebatealis and how long the Doctor and River are going to act on it.

Unfortunately, of maybe that would be incidentally, the trick in unlocking a time bubble is to find a magic door. And coincidentally, or maybe that should be regrettably, the key to finding a magic door in a bubble of time is to generate a relative amount of random words that has absolutely no point of origin or directive logic.

Relatively and randomly speaking, now that is the art of the Gorgininium semidebatealis; the lost talent of the 41th Gorgininium race of Septa who developed this skill when their entire galaxy was assaulted by a rather gargantuan bubble of time. Or at least that is the rumour in the seventh circle of Gorgi 40. No one has seen the 41th Septa since the 39th and most '_people_' assume they never escaped the bubble. The Doctor, however, is putting the stakes on the 41th – a most favourite number of his.

Did you know that 41 is the 13th smallest prime number? It's also a supersingular prime and an Einstein prime. Why, 41 is a prime-lovable number. Then there's the Messier object M41, a magnitude 5.0 open cluster in the constellation Canis Major and also the Balder 41x space station in the orbit of Sol41. Curiously 41 is the atomic number of niobium in the periodic table on Earth whereas in the big encyclopaedia of sciency-thingamajigs it's the supratomic happy-prime of Gallilinium – which coincidentally is another favourite of the Doctor's. But please, for the sake of sanity who very much appreciates sanity, do not mention Gallilinium to the Doctor – he will babble about it till you go utterly insane.

"_Doctor!_"

"_River!_"

"_What are the odds of actually localizing a spatio-temporal hyperlink – even if we continue this gorgi-babble-nonsense?_"

"_I never actually calculated the statistics – I've always thought it would be impossible for me to be imprisoned by time_"

"_Great_"

"_Gorgininiumally-speaking, I'd imagine the chances are rather random – just as likely to occur were we to do something else entirely, I suppose – randomly speaking_"

That is the trouble with the mystery of a random universe – everything is as likely to be random as the next. The root of the problem, so to speak, lies in the complex nature of understanding something that really has no logic appearance at all. Magic doors, I tell you, are rather like a nasty headache that just consist and consist... for a very very, very very long time – only it doesn't really exist at all.

"_So, Doctor, we might as well talk in a G'messierian dialect?_"

"_Yes_"

"_Might as well discuss the latest political uproars in Rambess?_"

"_Yes – though I suppose Rambess would be a little too well-ordered_"

"_Read any good books lately?_"

Now, River likes randomness just as much as any normal person should – but she has never cared much for the art of Gorgininium-semidebatealis and would much rather talk about recreational mathematic or possibly submerge herself in melting candle wax than continue with the obstinate nature of nonsense.

"_Actually, I read a rather curious thing a while back_"

"_While back?_"

"_Yes, it must have been around the time I had that rather strange obsession with yellow, because I remember I was in the middle of spring cleaning the Tardis and I found this little yellow notebook in a pile of dust_"

"_You spring clean?_"

"_You don't?_"

Now, you might wonder how the Doctor keeps track of spring in the Tardis since that would be a rather relatively-dimensional thing to keep track of in a time machine – a curious mystery which is coincidentally also on River's mind.

"_So what, you clean every time you accidentally land somewhere spring-correlated?_"

"_No, no – you see whenever the Tardis passes through the bilateral temporal atmosphere of -_"

"_Never mind_… _now what about the yellow notebook?_"

River always had an obsession with interrupting the Doctor when he was about to explain a curious and rather unexplainable thing – something he found rather curious in itself and he often wondered about it, striking up obscure theories and calculations raging from her already having heard the explanation before to her being a temporal-hybrid sonic-hedgehog. It never crossed his mind though that she merely didn't want to spend the next hour being lectured about the bilateral temporal whatsit atmosphere of whatever.

"_It was a wonderful collection of Gallifreyan poetry_"

"_Poetry?_"

"_Yes_"

"_Did you write it?_"

"_Well…"_

"_You wrote it, forgot about it and discovered it – that is _so_ you!"_

"_Incidentally yes, it was authored by me"_

"_Naturally_"

"_But there was this one poem, which I might have written under the guise of amnesia for I frankly do not remember writing it, but it was about the colour yellow and the spacial-hyperness of -_"

"_Just cite the poem for me sweetie... – I have a feeling it's shorter than the summary._"

"_Right… mind you I was rather young at the time"_

"_I shall keep an open mind then"_

"… _ξό ϟϠ ϗϱ Ϭ Ϲ_"

And curiously enough the Gallifreyan poem unlocked a spacial-temporal hyperlink in the time bubble, and the Doctor and River managed to escape. Of course it also meant it was one magic door counted and located which was one more than everyone else's calculations, and accordingly the Doctor and River are considered among those ancient wise sentient beings in the universe by the northern orbitiary-tutis galaxies.

* * *

=)


End file.
